


maketh the man

by apolliades



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Quintuple Drabble, Steve Rogers-centric, Trans Steve Rogers, Transphobia, but i can't seem to write any real comfort, don't mind me just working through some trauma, so this is what ya get, this was supposed to be hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 21:50:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17906321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolliades/pseuds/apolliades
Summary: “Don’t touch me.”“Tell us what you are.”





	maketh the man

“Hey.”

The tone of voice alone is enough. He knows not necessarily what is coming, but that something is.

“Is that a dame?”

Head down, Steve does not lift his gaze. He pretends he hasn’t heard; he sucks the last embers of life out of his cigarette.

“Or a faggot?”

Don’t look up. Don’t rise to it. Don’t look up don’t look up don’t look up. These are two guys each of them easily twice his size. Don’t look up. For once, let the fight pass by. His cigarette burns down. He crushes the butt of it under his shoe. He looks up.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

His voice comes out lower when he’s angry. That at least works in his favour.

“Sounds like a dame to me.”

Though not well enough.

“But it talks like a man.”

“So what, a bulldyker?”

Steve holds his chin high. Each of these men has a foot on him at least. Ain’t easy to stare them both down at once. His heart shudders.

“Let’s find out.”

There is a hand inside his coat. It seems to happen quickly - it touches him before he remembers he can move away. Humiliation feels like a fever, runs through him in tremors.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Tell us what you are.”

His back hits the wall. He has swung punches for less but he doesn’t, now, and can’t think why. His fists are frozen.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Hey! Don’t touch him!”

Bucky bursts out of the store and onto the scene in all his chivalric glory - these men are bigger than him, too, but perhaps it’s his uniform, perhaps it’s because people are looking now, perhaps it’s just his maleness. There’s no question of what he is. A shove to the shoulder, a look - they back off, laughing, dismissive, like it was some stupid game.

They turn a corner out of sight. Steve remembers how to breathe again.

“Steve? Steve, are you alright? Did they hurt you?” Bucky’s hands on his shoulders, his face close, his eyes big and earnest.

He shakes his head, though he can still feel that fever, cold sweat sticking his shirt to his skin beneath his coat. “No. It’s alright, I’m fine.”

“I swear I can’t let you out of my sight for five minutes without you finding some kind of trouble.” Bucky is still looking at him with that deep concern. “Steve, you’re white as a sheet.”

“I’m alright.”

“What did they say to you?”

“Nothin’, Buck. I’m alright.” Can’t quite look him in the eye, though. He lowers his voice; Bucky leans in to hear him. “Y’know, if I was in a dress you could kiss me now and no one would bat an eye.”

Bucky looks perplexed. “Is that what that was about?”

Steve is quiet a moment. He focuses on the feeling of Bucky’s hands on his shoulders, their weight, their realness. He wills himself to stop shaking. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> comfort section/follow-up [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420519).


End file.
